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My comments are embedded in your post below:
From: Zen_Forum@yahoogroups.com [mailto:zen_fo...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
Of DP
Sent: Sunday, August 15, 2010 9:36 PM
To: Zen_Forum@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Zen] Namaste- first message
I have been doing zazen for awhile now, but I've gone weeks and months at a
time without doing it... getting up and doing it regularly is very difficult
for me.
[Bill!] Difficulty is a good thing - a teaching thing.
I like to consider myself, in the words of Evelyn Underhill, a "practical
mystic." I find koans sometimes useful, but I find that I am also drawn to
the ideas of Thich Nhat Hanh, of imbuing everything with purpose (of course,
this can be hard with OCD, in which every action seems to have hidden
consequences).
[Bill!] I would think that anyone with OCD would not find it difficult at
all to 'imbue everything with purpose'. That's what OCD means, doesn't it?
Zen is the opposite of that. Zen has no purpose, no goal. Zen is Just
THIS!
I'm a little turned off by some of what I find obfuscating in some zen
messages, the people who hide behind linguistic tricks. Is that a little too
cynical? Am I asking too many questions? :)
[Bill!] What I think you see as 'linguistic tricks' in zen are probably just
the results of frustration at trying to communicate non-dualistic
experiences using language which is based on dualisms. That, or an attempt
at using language in a non-ordinary way (like koans, which you said you find
'useful' sometimes) to help induce a break in dualistic thinking.
.Bill!